Literary agent Emmanuelle Morgen, nee Alspaugh, has moved chairs once again. Formerly with Judith Ehrlich's crew, she will hang up her coat in the offices of Stonesong.
Sorry, with who? A literary agency, you say? But they say they're also a publisher.
Several literary agencies have branched out into e-book publishing for their clients. There are countless reasons given, usually having something to do with money or control of an author's catalogue. No matter why it's done, it has blurred the boundary between literary agent and publisher.
Stonesong not only blurs that line but seems to have done a fine job of erasing it. How can a firm that publishes on demand also act as a representative for authors seeking a publishing contract with a major house?
The Association of Authors' Representatives is concerned with ethics in their industry, and agents becoming publishers is often considered a violation. It's a bit of a conflict of interest for an agent. If they can't sell something, do they then publish the manuscript through their own company? So why would they want to work really hard to sell something?
To date, Stonesong has been largely dealing with non-fiction, and judging by their on-line listings, they're big in the cookbook world. Ms. Morgen plans to continue representing women's fiction and all the other genres she's familiar with.
That means Stonesong is looking to expand, but are they more interested in doing more representing, or more publishing?
The industry is surely in flux. Who can state with certainty where it's going, or where it will end up?
No comments:
Post a Comment